Is it Next Year Yet?

So the Baylor women became the first college basketball team - male or female - to go 40-0 in a season?

TigerBlog is amazed. That the Bears played 40 games, that is.

The last men's basketball team to go unbeaten in Division I was the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, who went 32-0. Baylor's 40-0 season added a full 25% more of a season than the Hoosiers of Scott May, Kent Benson and Quinn Buckner did.

The NCAA women's tournament started in 1982, six years after the Hoosiers had their perfect run. Since then, no men's team has been undefeated, obviously.

The 2012 Baylor women became the sixth women's team to have a perfect season.

Oh, by the way, did you ever eat a Clif Bar? You know, those instant energy-type bars (TB thinks they're a tad bitter). Anyway, the court at the women's basketball tournament was decorated exactly like the wrapper for the Clif Bars. Didn't anyone notice that?

The NCAA women's tournament somewhat closely mirrored the men's tournament, in that the unquestioned prohibitive favorite cruised through the event.

It made for some March dullness.

The world of college basketball has some issues to deal with as it moves forward.

The one-and-done concept makes a mockery of the commercials that run that say "still think we're a bunch of dumb jocks?" The answer is, in big-time men's basketball, no, not dumb jocks, just mercenaries.

The officiating has become everything officiating isn't supposed to be. The refs are supposed to be invisible; instead, they have injected themselves into the forefront with their mind-numbing replay reviews over nothing and the propensity to make the wrong call in a big spot.

The way games end is tedious. There are way too many timeouts called. If there are going to be nine media timeouts per game, how about no team timeouts? Or at the very least how about three timeouts per game, and if you don't call one in the first half, you lose it?

And none of that even takes into account how conference realignment for football affects basketball.

For all of that, there are few things that match a great college basketball game.

TigerBlog, for one, is excited already about Princeton's chances in the 2012-13 season, for men and women.

Between the two programs, three 1,000-point scorers graduate - Douglas Davis (his 1,550 points are second all-time at Princeton) for the men and Lauren Edwards and Devona Allgood for the women.

Even with those losses, both teams will be in the hunt to the end next season.

The men were playing as well or maybe better than any team in the league by season's end this year. By next year, the team will have had the difficult transitional year under a new head coach out of the way, and Mitch Henderson clearly is a great young coach.

The women's team destroyed the league this year, and the distance between the Tigers and the other schools was significant. Losing Edwards and Allgood will hurt, but the rest of the league has a lot of catching up to do.

For Princeton fans, next year offers the last chance to see two all-time greats play for the Tigers.

On the men's side, there's Ian Hummer, who is likely to pass by Davis in points. Hummer is a threat to do something spectacular at any moment, and he will be as good as any player in the Ivy League next year (he will be the only returning unanimous first-team all-league pick from this year).

On the women's side, there's Niveen Rasheed, easily the best player in the Ivy League and as good as any player in Ivy women's history (along with Harvard grad Allison Feaster and Penn grad Diana Caramanico). Just like Hummer, Rasheed is a highlight waiting to happen every time the ball is in her hands.

The 2012-13 basketball seasons could both be pretty exciting around here.

Unlike the recently concluded NCAA tournaments.